Lemaire Illumination Technologies LLC v. HTC America Inc

Just over a year ago, inventor-backed Lemaire Illumination Technologies LLC added an Eastern District of Texas case against HTC to its sole litigation campaign, targeting color-adjusted camera flash systems within the defendants’ smartphones with three patents broadly related to controlling and powering a solid-state light source such as a light-emitting diode (LED). That complaint highlighted one claim from each of the three patents. HTC countered, in part, with petitions for inter partes review (IPR) of the patents asserted, challenging those three highlighted claims, as well as others. The district court proceeded into claim construction, with Lemaire Illumination briefing disputes over terms from each patent, when the NPE, shortly thereafter, disclaimed before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) the highlighted claims for two of the patents. HTC has quickly moved in Texas for partial summary judgment as to those two patents, while Lemaire Illumination has filed an apparent belt-and-suspenders complaint (2:19-cv-00317)—naming HTC America, instead of its parent HTC Corporation, in a new forum. That second complaint asserts the same three patents against the same products but highlights different claims from those two patents in some trouble before the PTAB.

Huawei (2:18-cv-00353) is the latest defendant to be sued in the sole litigation campaign of inventor-backed Lemaire Illumination Technologies LLC over three patents generally related to controlling and powering a solid-state light source such as a light-emitting diode (LED). The new complaint follows a dismissal and settlement in a case brought against Microsoft last November. The NPE’s first case, filed against LG Electronics, was dismissed with prejudice just before that, while the only other active defendant in the campaign, HTC, answered Lemaire’s complaint in the Eastern District of Texas this past May. Since its inception in July 2016, Lemaire’s campaign has targeted color-adjusted camera flash systems within the defendants’ smartphones.

Lemaire Illumination Technologies LLC, an inventor-backed NPE, has filed suit against HTC (2:18-cv-00021), asserting three patents broadly related to controlling and powering a solid-state light source such as a light-emitting diode (LED). Lemaire has asserted the patents in previous cases filed against LG Electronics (LGE) (dismissed with prejudice in October 2017) and Microsoft (filed shortly thereafter, in November 2017), targeting color-adjusted camera flash systems within the defendants’ smartphones. Two of the patents were previously seen in an IPNav litigation campaign running from July 2012 to February 2014.

Inventor-controlled NPE Lemaire Illumination Technologies LLC has added Microsoft (2:17-cv-00729) to its sole litigation campaign, just over two weeks after the dismissal of its two lawsuits against LG Electronics (LGE). As in those previous cases, Microsoft is alleged to infringe three patents generally related to controlling and powering a solid-state light source such as a light-emitting diode (LED), with the color-adjusted camera flash systems of its Lumia 950 smartphone lineup at issue (including those from the single- and dual-SIM variants of the smaller Lumia 950 as well as the Lumia 950 XL).

Inventor-controlled Lemaire Illumination Technologies LLC has filed a second complaint asserting the same three patents (6,095,661; 6,488,390; 9,119,266) against another LG Electronics entity (2:17-cv-00319) (LG Electronics, Inc., a Korean entity). In July 2016, Lemaire asserted the patents against three US LG entities, alleging infringement through the manufacture and sale of G3 and G4 Android-based smartphones based on the color-adjusted LED flashes included with embedded cameras. The patents generally relate to controlling and powering a solid-state light source such as a light-emitting diode (LED). The new complaint appears to be nearly identical to the original.